After a successful P3million liver transplant operation
Accompanied by his parents, Kirby Hizon, the one-year old baby who was found last year to be suffering from biliary atresia, visited COMTEQ Computer College after undergoing a successful P3-million liver transplant operation in Taiwan late last year.
Kirby’s liver transplant operation was made possible through a community-wide fund raising campaign initiated by the local chapter of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines in October 2003.
COMTEQ students, led by the student council headed by Allan Dale Calisaan, immediately supported the campaign’s Alyansa ni Kirby program by soliciting funds from the Freeport gates, and by actively participating in the benefit concert dubbed Youth Rock for Kirby. Child star Dindin Llarena and the city’s local bands offered their services in the concert for free.
Both activities were spearheaded by the local chapter of the NUJP and the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority which was headed by then chairman and administrator, Felicito C. Payumo. Proceeds from the fund raising activities were kept in a bank account being supervised by the LIFT Babies Foundation, a foundation established to help biliary atresia patients.
The campaign was later supported by schools, duty free shops, supermarkets, banks and Mercury Drug outlets.
During the concert, numerous COMTEQ students donated their time and effort in manning computer equipment, creating the computer graphics presentation, collecting donations and acting as ushers. A band composed of COMTEQ students and instructors even took part in the concert.
When donations for Kirby seemed slow, Mr. Saturnino Dumlao and Mr. Florentino Paller, both NSTP instructors pitched in. They coordinated the coin collection activities of their students at the Rizal and Magsaysay gates of the SBMA, and included collection activities as part of the NSTP course.
Student trainees at the COMTEQ I.T. Center, on the other hand, created a website for Save Baby Kirby Campaign that made contributions even from abroad possible. The website also kept all donors and contributors to the project updated on the developments of the campaign.
ABS-CBN later supported the campaign and generated much of the needed funds for the operation through its television programs, Maala-ala Mo Kaya and TV Patrol . The Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office also pitched in a P1-million donation to the project.
Kirby was born with a rare liver disease called biliary atresia which could have caused his death within two years of birth had he not undergone the liver transplant operation. Biliary atresia is a condition wherein the bile ducts are absent or unable to convey bile out of the liver, causing the liver to fail and the baby to die within two years after birth.
Kirby was operated on in Taiwan in August last year with his father, Erickson Ongkiko as the liver donor.
Kirby’s parents, who accompanied Kirby to COMTEQ thanked the students for their valuable contribution to the whole project which gave their first born child another lease in life.